Prevention

1. Prevention AmeriCorps*VISTA and the Prevention Resource Center Source: Center for Substance Abuse and Prevention (CSAP) Author: Ryan J. Smart, VISTA PRC January 3, 2001

2. Recap: The 5 PRC Goals

3. Building Blocks of a Good Prevention Program • Based on sound theory and uses practices grounded in research. • Systematically planned and assessed. • Facilitated by knowledgeable and competent staff. • Addresses participants from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, and it uses a code of ethics. • Developmentally appropriate. • Incorporates the media. • Has an evaluation component.

4. Risk and Protective Factor Theory • Problem behaviors share common risk factors. • Risk factors increase the chance of behavior problems. • Increase protective factors to help buffer the effects of risk factors. • Decreasing the number of risk factors present in an individual’s environment.

5. Community Risk Factors • Availability of drugs • Community laws and norms favorable toward drug use • Transitions and mobility • Low neighborhood attachment and community disorganization • Extreme economic deprivation

6. Family Risk Factors • Family history of substance abuse • Family management problems • Family conflict • Parental attitudes (advocating) and involvement in drug use (i.e. children lighting cigarettes for parents, getting beers from fridge for parents or consumption)

7. School Risk Factors • Early and persistent antisocial behavior • Academic failure beginning in elementary school (the experience of failure is the risk, not the disability to succeed) • Lack of commitment to school (both parent and child)

8. Individual/Peer Risk Factors • Alienation/rebelliousness • Friends who use drugs (big item here) • Favorable attitudes toward drugs • Early initiation of drug use (before age 15) • Constitutional factors (biological such as sensation seeking and genetic predisposition)

9. Protective Factors • Individual Characteristics • Gender, Resilient Temperament, Positive Social Orientation, Intelligence • Bonding • Opportunities, Skills, Recognition • Healthy Beliefs and Clear Standards

10. Social Development Strategy • Based on: • Individual Characteristics; • Opportunities to develop skills and use them; • Opportunities for social bonding; • Development of healthy beliefs and clear standards that lead to healthy behaviors.

11. CSAP Developmental Assets • Emphasizes strengths in people • Focuses on youth as resources, not problems • Focuses on increasing the number of assets present in youth’s lives www.samhsa.gov/centers/csap/csap.html

12. Search Institute Developmental Assets • This framework identifies 40 critical factors for young people's growth and development; • Offers a set of benchmarks for positive child and adolescent development; • Clearly shows important roles that families, schools, congregations, neighborhoods, youth organizations, and others in communities play in shaping young people's lives. www.search-institute.org/assets/

13. Resiliency • Focuses on how children “bounce back” in the face of adversity • Includes several factors which foster resilience in kids • Examples: • Parental age relative to child’s age • Number of children in a family • Spacing between children in a family • Steady employment of caretakers • Presence of at least one caring adult (whether that be a relative or not)

14. Six Prevention Strategies • Information Dissemination • Prevention Education • Alternative Activities • Community-based Processes • Environmental approaches • Problem identification and referral

15. Six Prevention Strategies 1. Information Dissemination • Must be used in conjunction with other prevention approaches to be effective • Appeal to youth’s motives for engaging in risk behavior or perceptions about risk-taking behavior • Television and radio “spots” in choice air times • Avoid the use of authority figures

16. Six Prevention Strategies 2. Prevention Education • Interactive approaches engaging the target audience are more effective • Peer-led or include peer-led components • Academic year or longer and involve booster sessions • Two sets of workshops that work to improve parent skills along with adolescent skills

17. Six Prevention Strategies 3. Alternative Activities • Part of a comprehensive prevention plan. • Benefits high-risk youth who may not have adequate adult supervision. • Example: After school art programs, service/learning, volunteer civic service, etc. • One-shot community events do not, in themselves, change the behavior of participants.

18. Six Prevention Strategies 4. Community-based Processes • Characteristics of successful partnerships include: • a clear vision • committed partnership members • diverse participants • Paid coalition staff operate as resource providers and facilitators • Simple committee structures are most productive

19. Six Prevention Strategies 5. Environmental Examples include: • Excise taxes • Minimum purchase age laws • “Use and lose” laws. Penalties should not be too harsh. • Outlet density • Ordinances (city or county)

20. Six Prevention Strategies 6. Problem ID and Referral • Understand scope of the problem • Be careful of labeling “problem child” when you are really trying to ID a problem behavior • May expose youth to more problematic substance abusers by referring them to an inappropriate treatment/intervention. • Example of a Referral: Family therapy

21. Program Planning • Planning allows us to create an objective profile of our community, identify how to target resources and efforts, and implement more effective strategies.

22. 7 Steps to Build a Good Program • Increase the community’s readiness • Assess risk/protective factors • Gather Data and Determine Priorities • Examine community resources • Target efforts • Use best practices and guiding principles • Evaluate

23. 7 Steps to Build a Good Program 1. Community Readiness • Extent to which a community is prepared to implement and support a prevention program (there are 9 stages of readiness) • A community’s readiness can be enhanced.

24. 7 Steps to Build a Good Program 2. Assessment • Identify what the problems are and what risk and protective factors are active in the community.

25. 7 Steps to Build a Good Program 3a. Gathering Info About the Community • Questions to consider: • Historical issues • Economic and Political issues • Traditional or culture-specific issues • Medical Orientation/Diet • Spirituality • Places to Look: • Census data, reports, and statistics (medical/public health references) • Behavioral and social literature/newspapers • Consult with local professionals (academicians, health professionals, leaders of the target community)

26. 7 Steps to Build a Good Program 3b. Prioritize • After you have gathered data and assessed the community, analyze the data and prioritize what the communities greatest needs are.

27. 7 Steps to Build a Good Program 4. Examine Community Resources • Reduce risk factors and increase protective factors • “What is going on in my community?”

28. 7 Steps to Build a Good Program 5. Target Efforts • Universal—addresses the entire population • Selective—addresses an at risk population • Indicated—addresses a population that has already experienced an onset of a risk behavior.

29. 7 Steps to Build a Good Program 6. Use Best Practices and Guiding Principles • It is important to build upon the knowledge and research that exists • Better chances of receiving funding • Developed plan of evaluation and implementation

30. Steps to Build a Good Program 7. Evaluate • Why would we evaluate? • What are some types of evaluation? • Logic Model (note this serves as a conceptual framework for building a program that has a built-in evaluation component).

31. Logic Model • Definition • Description of what a program is expected to achieve and how it is expected to work. • It is a map linking together a project’s goals, activities, services, and assumptions. • Benefits • Develops understanding, exposes assumptions, and promotes communications. • Helps monitor progress, and serves as an evaluation framework. • Great Way to Apply for Grants!

32. Designing a Model • Goals • Risk and Protective factors to be addressed. • Strategies • Services and activities to be provided. • The Target Group • Who will participate in or be influenced by the program?

33. Designing a Model • If-Then Statements • How will these activities lead to expected outcomes? • The Short-term Outcomes • What immediate changes are expected for individuals, organizations, or communities? • The Long-term Impacts • What changes would the program ultimately like to create?

34. Outcomes Vs. Impacts • No right number of outcomes or impacts. • The more immediate the outcome, the more influence a program has over its achievement (strong cause/effect relationship). • The longer term the impact, the less direct influence a program has over its achievement (less strong cause/effect relationship). • Don’t confuse outcomes with outputs (e.g. clients served, hours of service provided).

35. Questions to Consider When Evaluating • Ask a question that directly relates to the column of the logic model you are evaluating. • Be specific. • In finding methods to answer the question, also be specific and determine several methods of answering the question.

36. Blank Logic Model

38. Prevention and the Media • Communication Channels: • TV, Radio, Billboards, Newspapers, PSAs, magazines, school curricula, churches, doctors’ offices/clinics … • Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full: • Traditional press releases focus on negative behaviors, and the statistics reflect non-normative behavior. • A better press release is consistent with our goals of promoting health and should reflect social norms. • Also, a good press release emphasizes the seriousness of the situation without losing context of focus on the positive.

39. Prevention and the Media • Media Advocacy • Strategic use of media as a resource for advancing a social or public policy initiative. • Media Literacy • The ability to “read” or “decode” messages in a variety of print and electronic media. • Social Marketing • The process of applying basic (commercial) marketing techniques to social issues in order to create behavior change.

40. Ethical Code of Conduct • Non-discrimination • Competence • Integrity • Nature of Services • Confidentiality • Ethical Obligations

41. Culture • A Culturally competent prevention worker: • Understands cultural differences and similarities between different cultural groups. • Has a willingness and ability to draw on community-based values, traditions, and customs and to work with knowledgeable persons from the community in developing prevention programs. • Culturally Appropriate Programs: • Effectively demonstrates sensitivity to cultural differences and similarities and uses cultural symbols to communicate a message.

42. Conclusion • Program Building Blocks • Risk/Protective Factor Theory • Developmental Assets/Resiliency • 6 Prevention Strategies • 7 Steps of Program Planning • Culture/Ethics • Media • Logic Model

43. Resources • Visit the Prevention Resource Center Website for resources on data/statistics, programs, grant opportunities and current news. www.state.mt.us/prc • Visit the SEARCH Institute’s Website for helpful information regarding Youth Development and Assets. www.search-institute.org/assets/ • Visit the CSAP Website for more information regarding prevention strategies. www.samhsa.gov/centers/csap/csap.html